Do you have an alcohol addiction? If you do, addiction researchers say that unless you stop drinking, they can predict your future...and they don't need a crystal ball to do it.

So how do they know?

After observing enough alcoholics experience the same problems and situations in the same basic
order, researchers can now predict with some confidence that alcoholics drinking today will likely also progress through very similar types of experiences in a similar order.

That is unless you quit, then the future's yours for the taking, once again.

As a cautionary guide, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Administration (SAMHSA) developed a behaviors of alcoholism progression chart,
which lists the types of behaviors and situations a person endures through the early,
middle and late stages of this disease.1

This list may help you:

Determine the severity of your disease – by matching your
current experiences with those from the list you can see how far down the
timeline you’ve traveled.

Get motivated to try for abstinence – if you see that the
experiences early on the list match yours up till now, you’ll hopefully get
motivated to try for abstinence now, before you progress further down the list,
into progressively worsening situations.

So take a minute to read through the list - see where your current behaviors put you on the stages of
disease progression…and what the future holds, unless you commit to changing
your path.

Behaviors of Alcoholism: a Progressive List

The Early Stages

You start sneaking drinks or minimizing how much you
actually consume

You start to feel preoccupied with drinking

You start gulping drinks - especially that first one

You stop talking about your drinking with most people (drinking
buddies excepted) - you’d just rather not bring it up

You start having blackouts

Your tolerance goes up

You start drinking before and after social drinking
occasions

You start drinking as a way to relieve uncomfortable
emotions/stress, etc.

You start feeling uncomfortable in social situations that
don’t allow alcohol

You start to feel a loss of control over how much you drink
(sometimes you stay out way later than you had intended on, for example)

You start to lie to others about how much you drink

Your habits of drinking as a way to relieve negative
emotions get more entrenched

Middle Stages

You start hiding your alcohol, or making sure you’ll always
have a good supply

You start to NEED a first drink of the day

You try to force yourself into periods of abstinence (you go
on the wagon)

Other people start commenting on how much you’re drinking

You start becoming occasionally aggressive or grandiose

You start to feel real guilt about your drinking

Eating becomes less important than drinking

Personal relationships become less important than drinking

You start to develop unreasonable feelings of resentment

You start thinking of getting away temporarily as way to
stop drinking

Your sex drive diminishes

Your drinking leads to your quitting or losing your job

You start feeling overly jealous

You get into a habit of solo drinking

You get morning shakes or tremors

You start drinking early in the morning

Your guilt has blossomed into constant remorse

You have multi-day drinking binges

Your thinking becomes scattered and impaired

You start drinking with people you wouldn’t have associated
with earlier in your life

Late Stages

Your alcohol tolerance goes down

You start experiencing fear that is not attached to any
outside definable threat - just vague fear

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